Retaliation and escalation: Oh, by the way, we might change our position on Iran now, says Russia

posted at 6:01 pm on March 19, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Earlier this week, officials and diplomats apparently emerged from the latest round of nuclear-drawdown talks between Iran and six world powers — the United States, Germany, China, France, Britain, and Russia — without having made much progress beyond agreeing to meet again in April, but cautiously optimistic that Russia’s aggression with Ukraine wasn’t doing anything to undermine the discussions.

Russia may revise its stance in the Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the West over Ukraine, a senior diplomat warned Wednesday. …

Russia has cooperated with the United States and other Western nations in the Iranian talks, but [Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei] Ryabkov warned that its attitude may now change.

“We wouldn’t like to use these talks as an element of the game of raising the stakes taking into account the sentiments in some European capitals, Brussels and Washington,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax. “But if they force us into that, we will take retaliatory measures here as well. The historic importance of what happened in the last weeks and days regarding the restoration of historical justice and reunification of Crimea with Russia is incomparable to what we are dealing with in the Iranian issue.”

How nice. I don’t know who is honestly expecting much from these Iranian deal-making sessions (beyond giving Iran the opportunity to stall and bloviate while they receive their sought-after sanctions relief, of course), but one gets the feeling that Russia is ready to start being deliberately unhelpful, no?

“If President Putin goes ahead with his apparent intention to annex Crimea, we’re going to have to sanction Russia, and they are going to have to retaliate, and it’s really going to screw up the P5-plus-one negotiations with Iran,” said Gary Samore, a former senior aide on nonproliferation on the National Security Council in President Obama’s first term. He is now executive director for research at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, as well as the president of United Against Nuclear Iran, a group that advocates strong sanctions against Iran until the nuclear dispute is resolved.

“The problem will be that Iran will feel much less pressured to make any concessions if they think the P5-plus-one are squabbling,” Mr. Samore said. “The Iranians will be watching and waiting; they are not inclined to make any concessions anyway, but they are going to be less inclined until there is a resolution” of the situation in Ukraine.

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If Iran and America are smart they will get their stupid rivalry behind them. Iran should not allow itself to be used as bargaining chip or chess pawn in anyone game. Their civilization is older than the Russian. They don’t need this crap.

I don’t agree with McCain on anything, but I think he summarized it best when he said that Russia is a gas station masquerading as nation. America needs to start removing those pawn off the chess board. Iran, Cuba are prime for picking. Russia is only relevant because we allow them to be.

Russia masses troops on the border of the Eastern Ukraine, seeking to obtain a land bridge to their newly annexed territory….and Obama sends Biden to Biden-his-way through Poland in an effort to make Poland feel supported by the nation that unilaterally terminated the missile defense base in Poland because Russia looked at them with crossed eyes.

Now Russia is saying that in response to the ‘sanctions’ from Barack Obama, they will look towards further enabling the nuclear ambitions that they have enabled in Iran for the last decade with the approval of the DNC.

Oh, and I read that Russia is working on facilitating issuing RUSSIAN passports to ethnic Russians in the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) in an order to ‘protect their rights’.

Meanwhile, NATO looks to Obama, and Obama is busy trying to fudge the Obamacare enrollment numbers to declare a win at the end of this month. But the Baltic states are to be reassured that the need for US support is seared in the mind of the US Sec State, just like his Xmas visit to Cambodia was seared in his mind.

Bottom line – we, Eastern Europe, and to a large extent Western Europe, are Fuc*ed by this feckless Administration.

WHERE THE HELL IS JOHN KERRY? You know, there just might be something the Secretary of State should be doing this week other than getting the yacht ready for the season (that suggestion from another HA poster).

Obama is too busy with March Madness to deal with Russia, though he did come out and comment on the most pressing issue of the week- the 12-day-old disappearance of that Boeing 777.

Killary has said she hopes that Putin doesn’t start a new cold war. As you constantly screeched sweetie, hope is not a plan. And you were the one cackling at your own incompetence when you presented that overcharge button.

If Iran and America are smart they will get their stupid rivalry behind them. Iran should not allow itself to be used as bargaining chip or chess pawn in anyone game. Their civilization is older than the Russian. They don’t need this crap.

coolrepublica on March 19, 2014 at 6:13 PM

I’m not sure why you think Iran would “get smart” or quit a “rivalry” with us. The country’s leaders are a bunch of religious fanatics who have IDed the US and Israel as the Great and Little Satan. The country is a theocracy run by madmen almost as bad as Kim Jong Un, and is often held up as an example by the left of what the “religious right” plans for America. The US has spent years and multiple administrations trying to come to some kind of accord with Iran.

Much like Russia, the people running that country only understand violence, and right now Russia looks very strong and the US looks very weak and impotent.

@itsnotabout me. Russia did not a permanent seat in the UN because they we’re user.me they got a seat because they got nuclear weapons. All the permanent members do. France, uk, China, Russia USA. Germany the largest economy in Europe doesn’t have one, Japan the second largest economy doesn’t have one, but France does. Yep nuclear weapons buys you a voice at the table. A country not seeking one is either a saint country, a poor country or a stupid country.

Telling the President of Uganda that he is wrong about Teh Gheys and should embrace SSM. In fact, he is so concerned about this serious international issue that he is sending ‘our experts’ over to meet President Museveni.

“I talked personally to President Museveni just a few weeks ago, and he committed to meet with some of our experts so that we could engage him in a dialogue as to why what he did could not be based on any kind of science or fact, which is what he was alleging,” Kerry said during a University Town Hall meeting at the U.S. Department of State. “He welcomed that and said that he was happy to receive them and we can engage in that kind of conversation… maybe we can reach a point of reconsideration.”

Probably in Israel twisting Bibi’s arm in accordance with the Proggies’s deepest held belief: forcing Israel back to the suicide borders of pre-’67 and unconditionally allowing the “Right to Return” will instantly bring peace, love and harmony to the entire world. The very moment the Jews agree to their own genocide, every war in the world, every bit of injustice in the world, every bit of anything negative in the world will instantly vanish and unicorns and rainbows will fill every one with brotherly love and contentment. So if Kerry can get Bibi’s signature on the dotted line, Putin will immediately drop all his territorial designs and retreat behind his own borders.

Telling the President of Uganda that he is wrong about Teh Gheys and should embrace SSM. In fact, he is so concerned about this serious international issue that he is sending ‘our experts’ over to meet President Museveni.

Fuggedabout Russia and Iran. If Uganda resists and fails to heed “our experts”, it could really mean war.

The pressure is on and The One will succumb, yet, again. Putin is putting pressure on in so many areas at the same time, that Obamarama will over load to the extent that he may have to skip a round of golf and suck both thumbs at the same time…

(Reuters) — Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian.

Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment.

Russia fully supported the protection of the rights of linguistic minorities, a Moscow diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to a summary of the session issued by the U.N.’s information department.

“Language should not be used to segregate and isolate groups,” the diplomat was reported as saying. Russia was “concerned by steps taken in this regard in Estonia as well as in Ukraine,” the Moscow envoy was said to have added.

The text of the Russian remarks, echoing long-standing complaints over Estonia’s insistence that the large Russian minority in the east of the country should be able to speak Estonian, was not immediately available.

But amid the growing Crimea crisis, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – which like Ukraine were all parts of the old Soviet Union – have expressed growing apprehension over Moscow’s intentions.

The Yeti, the Yeti’s mother, and the worthless brats are on a million dollar taxpayer-paid vacation to China. What do you suppose the chances are that the rat-eared wonder is chain smoking, eating real food, and watching porn every night?

The Yeti, the Yeti’s mother, and the worthless brats are on a million dollar taxpayer-paid vacation to China. What do you suppose the chances are that the rat-eared wonder is chain smoking, eating real food, and watching porn every night?